CPD: Individual of curiosity in custody following taking pictures of culinary scholar

CHICAGO — A person of interest is in custody in relation to the shooting of a culinary student earlier this month in Lincoln Park.

Dakotah Earley, 23, was near Webster and Wayne Avenue when a man stepped out from behind a building, pointed a gun at him, and demanded his cell phone around 3 am on May 6. A struggle ensued and Earley was robbed and then shot three times at close range in the back and head.

It was all caught in video footage his mother called “the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”

“It was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen, and I think in the last couple of years we’ve seen a lot on video tapes and cell phones and things like that and this was the worst thing,” mother Joy Dobbs said told WGN News last week.

On Monday evening, Chicago police said a person of interest is in custody. Ald. Brian Hopkins told WGN News that individual and his crew are believed to be responsible for 30 recent armed robberies.

‘Could be anybody’s child’: Mother of student shot in Lincoln Park armed robbery says he’s improving

His mother told WGN News while he is improving, doctors had to amputate a portion of his leg. Prior to that, he was recently removed off life support and is breathing on his own.

Dobbs said she warned Earley about moving to Chicago last November.

“He’s just a big old kid at heart and doesn’t really see bad things and bad people,” Dobbs said.

A GoFundMe has raised over $100,000.

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